The services have been popular, in part due to the limited availability of investment opportunities for Chinese people, and specifically for low earners. Alibaba estimated that its service will sell $16.3 billion worth of money-market-like investments by the end of 2013.

Advertisement

The move is the most recent in an increasingly tense competition between Tencent, China’s largest listed Internet company, and Alibaba, which runs the country’s largest e-commerce platform. The two have been competing to woo China’s more than 400 million smartphone users with their applications.

For now, Tencent has the decided advantage. The company’s WeChat mobile-messaging platform has attracted more than 272 million monthly active users. Analysts say Alibaba is most worried about a recent move by Tencent to introduce a mobile-payment platform directly into its WeChat application. So far, Tencent has used the payment platform to sell select products on WeChat. But it plans to expand the platform and allow customers to pay brick-and-mortar merchants with their phone.

With an eye toward expansion, Alibaba recently launched a mobile wallet application. It allows users to make payments with its Alipay online payment platform to a range of vendors. The app, which the company said had more than 100 million users as of November 13th, also allows users to check on their investments in Alibaba funds and pay credit card bills.

Alibaba has also sought to strengthen its own smartphone chat application, called Laiwang. In recent months, it began subsidizing mobile data plans for those using the application. It has also helped 30,000 female models open accounts on the on the app to engage with users.

Howbuy offers investment research and also sells trust products, equity funds, and other funds linked to currencies and bonds, according to a statement from the company. Tencent didn’t release any deal terms and also didn’t say if it plans to offer investment services.

“Thanks to the financial support of well-known company Tencent, we will continue to focus on helping customers achieve one-stop asset allocation,” Goodbuy chairman Zhang Yangwen wrote in the statement.

About China Real Time Report

China Real Time Report is a vital resource for an expanding global community trying to keep up with a country changing minute by minute. The site offers quick insight and sharp analysis from the wide network of Dow Jones reporters across Greater China, including Dow Jones Newswires’ specialists and The Wall Street Journal’s award-winning team. It also draws on the insights of commentators close to the hot topic of the day in law, policy, economics and culture. Its editors can be reached at chinarealtime@wsj.com.